1995 Mt. Pleasant Tigers Baseball: The Team That Learned to Hold the Rope

Above Photo: The Conroy family’s been tractor mechanics for as far back as most of Titus County can recall, but young Tom, shown with Big John and Little John, made a fine showing as a Tiger baseball star when the chips were down.

From The East Texas Journal, June 1995

By Hudson Old

Leftover Tigers ‘hold the rope’ on their final chance to be champs

Having watched Mesquite Poteet’s number three pitcher one hit the Tigers at home the evening prior, and having paid good money to see the home team dismantled 17 to 4,1 concluded I could stay home, hoe tomatoes and listen to the season end on the transistor radio.

This year’s Tigers were a bunch of ragamuffin, left-over bench warmers, anyway. Left over from the star-studded teams of past years.

Hey. All you had to do was ask the experts.

Sure, somebody somewhere who is somebody briefly picked them number four in the state.

Then the season started and the Tigers dropped off the charts.

For whatever reason several years back, Coach Henry Garza didn’t get run off in spite of consecutive losing seasons. A losing coach has all the job security of a preacher who harps on tithing.

Coach Garza responded by putting together a string of winners stretching as far back as this year’s club has been in high school.

As Junior Varsity players, they got to watch Garza’s varsity team win the state championship.

Last year they warmed the bench for his district champs.

This year, the Tigers fielded one returning starter.

Early on, they folded to North Lamar, the district baseball equivalent of a third world country.

This isn’t to say the 1995 Tigers didn’t have some true believers early on. Their parents.

After the North Lamar debacle, Johnny Conroy said one day at lunch, between bites of Stop and Shop ribs, “They’ll be all right. It’s not gonna surprise me if they win district.”

Somebody wondered aloud if Mr. Conroy is a member of the Flat Earth society as well.

“Nope,” he said. “But I did walk through the field house on the hottest day of the summer last July and see most of the team in there lifting weights.

“On top of that they were running. I’m not talking about at practice. I’m talking about out on their own running, pushing themselves as hard as they could push. Anybody that’ll run really wants to win. They’ll be all right.”

Out of respect, nobody said anything else. Besides having a boy on the team, Mr. Conroy serves on the school board.

Several weeks later, with the Tigers in serious contention for a district crown, Johnny Conroy was addressing a crowd with a different attitude.

“They’ve always been good,” Johnny said over a Stop and Shop burger and fries. “They just weren’t sure about it because they were on the bench. Now that they’ve got the opportunity, they’re pulling each other up. They’ve battled for positions and changed positions just to get to play. And it’s made them close. They’re a real team. They support each other, no matter what.”

He concluded his luncheon lecture by encouraging me to call his son, Tom, relief pitcher and designated hitter, and ask him about “the rope.”

“Tell me about the rope, Tom,” I said into the phone.

“Coach Garza asked us one day if we were hanging by a rope over a cliff who we’d want holding the other end,” Tom said. “Everybody started rattling off the strongest guys on the team.”

Coach Garza let them finish.

“Then he told us that if we were really gonna be a team, we had to have confidence that any one of us could hold the rope for anybody else.”

The Tigers won district.

They won their first playoff game.

In the first game of a best of three series with Mesquite Poteet, Cody Matkin made a play at third that would make anybody’s highlight film.

He also had the lone hit of the evening as Poteet plastered the Tigers 17 to 4 before a packed home crowd.

The next afternoon, hoeing among the tomatoes, I listened on the radio as fate and them handed Tom Conroy a rope.

With the game scoreless and a man on first he ripped a triple.

His second RBI of the afternoon came with two men out in the fourth when he doubled to drive in Michael Clark.

The Tigers won 5 to 3 in extra innings.

Ed’s note: The Tigers 21-9-2 season ended with a regional semi-final loss to Southlake Carroll 4-2, putting the wraps on a class act. Five of the Class 4-A Tiger’s losses were in tournament play to 5-A clubs.